Backstory

Although his true origins are unknown, before the arrival of the First Host of the Celestials, Shuma-Gorath ruled the Earth and commanded human sacrifice, until the time-traveling sorcerer Sise-Neg banished him. He managed to return and set himself up as a god during the Hyborian Age, again commanding bloody sacrifice, but slaughtered those who sought his favor. Eventually, the power of Crom imprisoned him within a mountain. Even from that prison, he could interact with Conan the Barbarian, Kulan Gath, and many others, before Crom banished him back to his home dimension.

When Shuma-Gorath tried to return to Earth through the mind of the Ancient One, he forced Doctor Strange to kill his master to prevent the powerful creature from arriving on Earth. Years later, Strange was forced to destroy the talismans keeping the chaos demons at bay, to keep them from falling into the hands of an evil sorcerer. Strange was then forced to travel to Shuma-Gorath's dimension and fight it there to prevent the demons from invading Earth. To do so, Strange had to absorb the chaos magic into himself, gaining enough power to destroy Shuma-Gorath. However, he started to transform into a new Shuma-Gorath himself as a result, so he committed suicide to prevent that from happening. Fortunately, an ally of Strange was able to purify him on his way back to the living. Shuma-Gorath resurrected himself not long after from the remnants of chaos magic.

Powers and Abilities

Shuma-Gorath is a powerful and ancient demon of the highest order and possesses vast supernatural powers. He has superhuman strength and endurance which, being magical in nature, are incalculably high (the upper limits of his strength and endurance are unknown). Among his many (mostly-uncatalogued) mystical powers are the ability to communicate with and control others across dimensional barriers, to create and direct powerful blasts of mystical energy, and to affect transmutations on a planetary scale. He can also teleport and phase at will; he can also levitate. He can enter and leave different planes of existence and dimensions at will and has reality warping powers. He can also summon demons and other supernatural creatures to do his bidding. His intelligence is nearly immeasurable, approaching omniscience.

Because of his body's unique form, he has the ability to shapeshift and even liquefy himself. He also has the ability to generate several forms of energy attacks, mostly forming from his one eye. One attack not generated from his eye is when he forms a ball of pure energy that can shatter realities using all of his tentacles to generate the ball above himself.

His skin is rubbery and armored, making him difficult to damage except by the most powerful magics. Though he often appears as a scaley being with six to eight tentacles and a great, central eye, during the Hyborean Age he was also seen to have numerous pincers, claws, and insectoid limbs, in addition to a large, fanged maw. Similarly, he has been depicted as either greenish or purple in color. Presumably, he can alter his form at his leisure. His size seems to be related to his power, as he is truly gigantic in his home dimension.

In his native dimension he is virtually omnipotent. Given his past reformations, it is unknown if he can ever truly be killed.

Trivia

Although Shuma-Gorath's trademark color is green, Marvel Super Heroes features the character as purple (If player 2 selects him, however, he will be in his trademark color). This was corrected in all of his subsequent game appearances.

Shuma-Gorath has the purple color scheme from his first comic appearance and Marvel Super Heroes, his blue alt. from Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and a silver original. His DLC alt is based on his one-time disciple, Quoggoth.

Shuma-Gorath's likeness to Cthulhu is more than just a coincidence, Shuma-Gorath was originally conceived by Conan the Barbarian creator Robert E. Howard as a reference in a Kull story. When Marvel started illustrating several of Howard's sword-and-sorcery stories during the 1970s, they also imported some of Conan, Kull & Co.'s enemies into the Marvel Universe proper, including Shuma-Gorath. In Real Life, Howard was close friends with Lovecraft and as such, many of his stories are directly tied to the Cthulhu Mythos. Thus, Shuma-Gorath really is as close as one gets to playing a legit Elder God in a fighting game.

Shuma-Gorath is the second non-humanoid character in MvC3 to be confirmed (the first being Amaterasu).

Shuma-Gorath, along with Captain America, Spider-Man, Sentinel, and Doctor Doom, are the only Marvel characters in MvC3 to retain their respective themes in all the games they have been playable in.

Shuma-Gorath's victory pose involves him doing his classic arm fold, until he notices the "cameraman." He quickly crawls over to the cameraman, who attempts to run away, but ultimately gets grappled by Shuma, and the pose stops from there, thus making him a 4th wall breaker.

When Shuma defeats Deadpool, he asks him to stop calling him "calamari" which is the culinary name for squid. Shuma is also perplexed by Deadpool's mentioning of dipping sauce.

Strangely, Shuma-Gorath seems to have an attraction for Hsien-Ko, and Morrigan seems to be attracted to Shuma's "strong" tentacles, saying that she "...hopes the party's just getting started".

Morrigan's above quote is a reference to the stereotypical, and infamous, tentacle fetish that originates from Japan. This is a humorous explanation for many in the MvC fanbase as to why Capcom added Shuma-Gorath into the MvC series, due to him appearing so infrequently in the comics, and Capcom being a company centered in Japan.

It is known that during discussions to determine what characters would be in the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 roster, Capcom readily conceded to any refusals made for certain characters by Marvel, such as Venom. However, when Marvel refused the inclusion of Shuma-Gorath, Capcom vehemently protested, demanding that they be allowed to include him. After unusually constant and intense demand from Capcom, Marvel conceded and allowed Shuma-Gorath to be included in the roster, but only as DLC.

Curiously, he does not have a unique victory pose quote against Dr. Strange, despite Strange being his greatest enemy.